A congressman claims that the Mexican guy murdered in the Houston ICE shooting was not the intended target of the operation.

A congressman claims that the Mexican guy murdered in the Houston ICE shooting was not the intended target of the operation. – U.S. Representative Sylvia Garcia stated on Thursday that federal authorities had not been targeting a Mexican resident of the United States who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in a Galveston operation.

Acting ICE Director David Venturella informed the Democratic lawmaker, whose district includes the Houston neighborhood where the killing took place, that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “was not a target.”

According to his family, Salgado Araujo was a homebuilder who had been in the country for more than 35 years, had no criminal history, and was almost done with the lengthy process of getting legal status when he was assassinated early on Tuesday morning.

“We must take action. In an interview with MS Now, Garcia stated, “This is just one more death too many.” “And we should bring in outside, independent people to examine it if that’s necessary.”

An email requesting response late Thursday was not immediately answered by a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman.

DHS, which is in charge of ICE, previously claimed that when federal agents tried to pull over a car driven by Salgado Araujo, they were carrying out a targeted operation to apprehend a person in the nation without legal status. According to the organization, a federal officer shot a gun in self-defense after Salgado Araujo crashed an ICE car.

When asked if Salgado Araujo had been singled out by ICE officials, DHS said earlier on Thursday that police had been monitoring a home where they had previously seen two white vehicles.

Officers were nearly to the target’s residence on July 7 when they noticed a white van carrying a person who looked like the target. The car stop was then started by officers, according to the agency.

In contrast to prior fatalities involving federal immigration police, few images or recordings related to the shooting have surfaced in the days following the interaction, according to DHS, and the federal agents were not carrying body-worn cameras.

DHS claimed in a statement that Democrats and a historic government shutdown sparked by President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement were to responsible for the agents at the site in Houston not yet having body cameras.

If the agents didn’t have the devices, it was because Trump and Republican lawmakers didn’t want them to, according to U.S. Representative Christian Menefee, a Democrat who also represents Houston.

In a statement, he declared, “Houston is done accepting excuses from an agency that has more money than it knows what to do with and still can’t manage basic accountability.”

The shooting will be investigated, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s office. According to spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre, the agency is speaking with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal authorities shot and killed two Americans, to find out how they handled investigations involving federal immigration officials.

In an email statement, Lemaitre stated, “We are pursuing investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our reach, even though access to key evidence remains under federal control.”

Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, has been in contact with the families of the three men who were arrested by ICE during the deadly traffic stop, including Salgado Araujo’s brother.

Proaño told The Associated Press that LULAC has offered a $5,000 prize for information from witnesses and has yet to collect video footage that clearly depicts what transpired during the incident. He stated that the location of Salgado Araujo’s van and ICE vehicles has interfered with security camera footage that LULAC had examined.

He declared, “It will make it even harder to find the truth in all of this.”

Body-worn cameras were anticipated to be given to the ICE officials engaged in the incident within the next sixty days, according to DHS.

Democrats had refused to support ICE and the Border Patrol in the wake of the deadly shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis unless those agencies made adjustments intended to improve accountability and transparency. Legislation funding only ICE and CBP for three years was eventually enacted by Republicans in Congress.